Saturday Extra! Mars Retrograde and Tiger Woods

Back in mid-December, when Mars went retrograde in Leo, I had a discussion with a friend about how this might manifest in the collective. We agreed that we needed to watch the news headlines for big egos being brought down.

Mars is the quintessential ego planet and symbol of the universal masculine, and Leo is the sign of pride. It made sense that male pride would be wounded in some dramatic way with Mars retrograde in Leo, and we wondered whether there would be some accountability and perhaps, ultimately, deep healing.

U.S. President Obama, a Leo, certainly has had his share of humbling moments in the past few months. But no one has had a more dramatic public shaming than pro golfer Tiger Woods, who has been making news headlines since late November, when a minor car accident at his home in Florida led to a full-blown scandal involving the revelation of extramarital affairs with several women.

There are plenty of things going on in Tiger’s chart to suggest major challenges, especially involving his marriage. For starters — and this alone would account for just about all of his troubles — the past year’s Saturn-Uranus opposition has been taking place tightly conjunct his Ascendant and Descendant, the most important angles in the birth chart. When Saturn crosses the Ascendant, it can feel as though our lives are falling apart, especially if we have been ignoring deep personal issues and neglecting the well-being of our soul.

Mars has been transiting Tiger’s eleventh house, which rules the collective. On February 19, with Mars closing in on an exact conjunction with his natal Saturn at 1 degree Leo, he bit the bullet and issued a public apology. Opinion polls showed that most of the television-watching public believed he was sincere, but a majority said that if they were his wife, they wouldn’t forgive him.

The tabloids, of course, have been having a field day speculating on the response and inner turmoil of Tiger’s wife, Elin Nordegren, a former swimsuit model born in Sweden. By the way, they are both Capricorn, the sign of responsibility and obligation. Capricorns are noted for being able to endure pain and suffering in order to reach their lofty goals. On the downside, Capricorn can be entirely too fixated on material success, to the exclusion of spiritual growth.

There are times when our personal story is no longer our own, and I believe this to be the case for Tiger and Elin. Their personal relationship is making headlines not just because of the public fascination with lurid details, but because it is a story that everyone can identify with. And because this story is now deeply embedded in the collective, how the couple handles their problem holds great potential for healing a collective wound caused by the separation of the divine masculine and feminine. A public apology and a commitment to enter family therapy is a good start, and it’s entirely consistent with the energy of Mars retrograde in Leo.

It will be interesting to see what happens once Mars begins moving forward again, with Venus, symbol of the universal feminine, in Mars-ruled Aries. I have a feeling he’ll have to meet some personal demands, and he has a lot of work to do before he’s out of the woods. And, they are young (he’s 34 and she’s 30) and are surrounded by a lot of pressure to equate success with material possessions, when success as a couple depends on something entirely different.